Ealing couple's mission to bring Joy to Children

AN Ealing couple on a selfless mission are stepping up their quest to bring support and community empowerment to one of the world’s poorest places.

During their gap year in 2010, Chloe Maclay and fiancée Sam Mutton set up the Joy for Children and Communities charity, which aims to help better the lives of those in the slums of Uganda through activities such as football coaching, children’s play and weekly women’s meetings.

In August, the pair will visit the project, based in the capital Kampala, to witness first-hand how far their goodwill has already gone.

Sam, 21, said: “Leaving there (in 2011) we felt it completely wrong to just head back to our comfortable Western lives.

“We wanted to work out ways in which we could sustain what we’d started and continue to support the people there.”

As well as taking part in sponsored runs, most recently May’s Green Belt Relay, they raise money in the UK by selling jewellery made by women in Kampala from recycled paper.

A great deal of funding has already gone towards changing the structural and social landscape of the slums.

Friend and charity volunteer Alice Bailey, who will also visit the area this summer, said: “It is such a special thing to be involved in.

“It is a completely different culture, but it is amazing to see people of all ages committed to helping each other.”